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Personal life

Duke was born in Elmhurst, Queens, New York to John P. Duke (deceased) and Frances McMahon (deceased).[2][3] She has two older siblings, Carol and Raymond.[4] John and Ethel Ross, her managers, had Duke change her name from Anna Marie to Patty, and controlled "everything from what I wore to when I slept to what I ate."[3] She would move in with the Rosses with her mother's permission, but at age seventeen she would move to Los Angeles, Calfornia; after they tried to quash the romance between Duke and Harry Falk by moving her sitcom to LA.[3] While living with the Rosses they would curtailed their protégée's visits with her mother and close friends and even tried to fondle her in bed on two occasions.[3]

Duke was married to Falk, but they divorced in 1967.[3] Duke had an affair with a then seventeen year old, Desi Arnaz, Jr., from early to spring 1970.[3] She then began to date, John Astin, and also around the same time, developed an intimate relationship with Michael Tell. Duke learned she was pregnant in June 1970 and was unsure of whether the father was Arnaz[5] or Astin[3]. She married Tell, but that marriage only lasted for thirteen days before an annulment in early July 1970.[3] Duke was married to John Astin for thirteen years before a 1985 divorce[3], during their marriage Duke took the professional name Patty DukeAstin. She had been married to Michael Pearce from 1986[3] till her death in 2016.

Duke has three children, Sean Astin (b. 1971, whose father is actual Tell)[6], Mackenzie Astin (b. 1973, with Astin) and Kevin Pearce (b. 1988, with Pearce, adopted).[3] She became a stepmother to Pearce's two daughters, Raelene and Charlene; sadly Raelene died at the age of 22.[3]

Career

First becoming famous as a child star, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16, and later starring in her eponymous sitcom for three years, she progressed to more mature roles upon playing Neely O'Hara, in Valley of the Dolls. From 1985 to 1988, Duke was president of the Screen Actors Guild.